first of all, this is a threat intended for people living outside of the united states and having a hard time finding the proper job or career they would like to have, focussed on pentesting ofcourse.

even though i havent been working in this profession for a long time, at this point i'm (already) walking into some walls. i see that the demand for good ethical hackers / penetration testers is a lot lower then i would like to see. i think this has something to do with the characteristics of the typical dutch people, but thats a completely different story.

i think this profession is way more appriciated in for example the united states, and what i'd like to know is how does this affect job opportunities and if you are willing, is it wise to move to the united states to boost you carreer? any experience here?

CISSP, CEH, ECSA, OSCP, OSWP, eCPPT, eWAPT

earning my stripes appears to be a road i must travel alone...with a little help of EH.net

It really depends on many factors, in my opinion. Short said, I wouldn't mind to move into a complete different area if I would get a job I really desire and can't get somewhere else.

However, some things can make such a decision very hard. One of the main ones is family in my opinion. Do you have a girlfriend/ wife/ children? Would they support you and going with you? Could it cause any problems to your children if they are pulled out of their known environment? What about your friends and the other part of the family (grandparents, aunts, etc.)? Those are only a few of the questions which should be considered before making any decision and everyone has to answer them by himself (eg. how important are they compared to your career?).

j0rDy wrote:first of all, this is a threat intended for people living outside of the united states and having a hard time finding the proper job or career they would like to have, focussed on pentesting ofcourse.

even though i havent been working in this profession for a long time, at this point i'm (already) walking into some walls. i see that the demand for good ethical hackers / penetration testers is a lot lower then i would like to see. i think this has something to do with the characteristics of the typical dutch people, but thats a completely different story.

i think this profession is way more appriciated in for example the united states, and what i'd like to know is how does this affect job opportunities and if you are willing, is it wise to move to the united states to boost you carreer? any experience here?

How about working in Europe in some countries that do have a demand for skills?Would you consider a job in a neighboring country instead, or even the UK?

to keep the discussion going, there is no influence of external factors like girlfriends, wife, family or other things. part of being happy is having the right job isnt it?

impelse wrote:Also add that if you do not have Green Card/or Citizen you will not able to go inside of this profession in EEUU.

It is very hard to start here.

this is good to know! so type of occupation has influence on the possibility of getting a greed card...interesting...keeping this in mind means that everybody is pretty stuck at the location there currently at

CISSP, CEH, ECSA, OSCP, OSWP, eCPPT, eWAPT

earning my stripes appears to be a road i must travel alone...with a little help of EH.net

j0rDy wrote:to keep the discussion going, there is no influence of external factors like girlfriends, wife, family or other things. part of being happy is having the right job isnt it?

Sometimes it's about creating the right job. I don't know what he prevailing Dutch attitude is. Don't know if you're self-employed right now or working for a firm.

Possibility of putting on a few demonstration / work shops for companies. There was a thread here a couple of weeks ago (can't find it right now) about a guy who got a company to stand up and take notice, when he showed their Database Server wasn't suffering bugs, but was hacked.

this is good to know! so type of occupation has influence on the possibility of getting a greed card...interesting...keeping this in mind means that everybody is pretty stuck at the location there currently at

It's very difficult in that way, first you need to have some high skills or some masters that will incentive a company to sporson you a work visa. The work visa after one renew is for 6 years.

During that time maybe the company can sponsor you the Green Card, but with this economic situation where they begin to see with bad eyes to those companies that bring foreing exployees makes it more difficult.

It's more eays make a security comapny and try to sell your sevice to EEUU's companies.

j0rDy wrote:to keep the discussion going, there is no influence of external factors like girlfriends, wife, family or other things. part of being happy is having the right job isnt it?

Sometimes it's about creating the right job. I don't know what he prevailing Dutch attitude is. Don't know if you're self-employed right now or working for a firm.

Possibility of putting on a few demonstration / work shops for companies. There was a thread here a couple of weeks ago (can't find it right now) about a guy who got a company to stand up and take notice, when he showed their Database Server wasn't suffering bugs, but was hacked.

dutch people are mostly known by their "soberness". i am working for a firm at the moment and dont get me wrong, i'm quite happy with the position i'm in right now. its just someway i get a feeling if you want your career to boost you have to look in countries where ethical hacking is more alive, of some sort.

CISSP, CEH, ECSA, OSCP, OSWP, eCPPT, eWAPT

earning my stripes appears to be a road i must travel alone...with a little help of EH.net

I don't know how the Dutch government regulations are. Here in the States we have PCI which requires vuln assessments and pen testing, and there's also HIPAA and SOX which have an auditing requirement.

If you have regs that are new and the culture isn't quite there yet, then that sounds like a great business opportunity to be one of the first pen testing shops.

Or if moving to the States is an option, then go for it. I'm all for gobbling up good talent and motivated people.

In terms of the visa/ green card part.. I just came back from a presentation, where the presenter answered a questions which was also about this issue. He said, that it seems to be easier then it was a few years back to get visa, mostly because of the economic crisis. He also originates from Europe and works now in the USA.

I could be more easy because there are more available visas (few companies are applying), but the difficult part is to find the company to sponsor you. If you get one company you will be ok.

There is another posibility, a lot of people get this one, they have a small business in your contry and they use a lawyer to obtaing a work visa for your business, I am not sure if they call it work visas but is something realted (there are some requirements).

don wrote:I don't know how the Dutch government regulations are. Here in the States we have PCI which requires vuln assessments and pen testing, and there's also HIPAA and SOX which have an auditing requirement.

If you have regs that are new and the culture isn't quite there yet, then that sounds like a great business opportunity to be one of the first pen testing shops.

Or if moving to the States is an option, then go for it. I'm all for gobbling up good talent and motivated people.

Don

i see that shift here too. more financial institutes get forced by the goverment to apply to these requirements (PCI-DSS is a good one wich makes work here a little easier.). the experience i have is that it is hard to get it concrete. most organizations know they have to do something about auditing and compliancy, but they dont make the decision to actually do it. maybe thats just something common in the it security. maybe it is my lack of experience in the field. i guess time will tell and all i can say is, don: if youre hiring, i'll be on the next plane!

CISSP, CEH, ECSA, OSCP, OSWP, eCPPT, eWAPT

earning my stripes appears to be a road i must travel alone...with a little help of EH.net